RailFans LIVE life to the fullest.

Yes. And more often than not, I enjoy the trips by passenger trains much more than any others. The sheer variety of people we get to meet, and the unrestricted rail-fanning opportunities are just too good.
A few of my favorites.
1) Kakinada to Visakhapatnam : I used to regularly take this passenger to and fro between Kakinada and Visakhapatnam. It's a short run;only about 4 hours, but it's a great journey, interacting with a multitude of people. And more often than not, I used to come across people...
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who were regulars on the train. It was quite fun introducing them to rail-fanning. A few days of watching me observe loco links, loco numbers, track circuits in the route etc, were enough to get these people interested in what I was doing. And they found rail fanning to be an interesting thing that made the long halts at intermediate stations fun, instead of being boring. The Eastern ghats running nearby after Annavaram also make the morning journeys in this train quite enjoyable.
2) The most memorable however, would be a trip from SBC to CCT by passengers till BZA. I took a chain with the SBC-AJJ passenger from WFD to AJJ ( about 8 hours of day time journey), about 3 hours of rail fanning there, then took the passenger to RU. Another 3 hours of waiting there, got into a heavily crowded TPTY-COA passenger at 1:30 in the night. Being the Sankranti time, the train was way too crowded and it was impossible to find a place to sit on the train.
Despite the heavy crowding, the passengers were very courteous. The men gave up their spots on the upper berths and the luggage racks to women and children to sleep and once in a while one person would wake up somebody sleeping on the floor or leaning against the wall and offer them their place to sleep as they had slept for a couple of hours already. I decided to wing it and pulled a night-out. That journey is one of the most memorable I've had on Indian railways.
The train takes about 11 hours to reach BZA from RU. Despite being the festival season with lots of special trains, I was surprised to see that my train was running before time! We were halted at several stations between RU and GDR, in the dead of the night, very silent surroundings, a cool breeze and half-lit stations, with a bunch of people getting down from the train at every halt and chatting up until the train moved again.
My train reached BZA just on time ( a first of sorts for this train) and I got down to take my favorite train 17205 to Kakinada instead of continuing in the passenger which also goes to CCT. After 4 hours of rail fanning at BZA, got to enjoy a speedy run on a late running 17205, which covered up almost half an hour of delay, trolled Coromandel and overtook my passenger at Gudaparti about 20 minutes before CCT.
36 hours of sleepless train journey, with a standing journey for 24 hours in passengers!! Best experience ever. :)